Until We Meet Again
by jezeka
Summary: Tezuka returns from the rehab center in Germany in perfect condition just in time to rejoin our Seigaku regulars and train for the Nationals. However, he left behind a girl and a promise to see each other again while the regulars get nosy. TezukaxOC.
1. Ch 1: Oh Crap

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any Prince of Tennis characters.

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(**flashback**) 

"_Promise me that we'll meet again, Kunimitsu-kun. Maybe I'll visit Tokyo and you can show me around and be my personal tour guide."_

" _Aa." His eyes softened at the sight of her tear-filled jade eyes and her gentle smile. She was obviously trying to withhold her tears and sadness of him leaving her._

_Tezuka picked up his bags and turned to walk toward the gate when he suddenly felt a pair of arms encircling him, filling his nose with the smell of summer berries._

"_I- I'll miss you. So much." He heard soft sniffles as she was trying to control her tears and appear strong._

_He looked at her standing in front of him, trying to memorize her scent, her face, her voice. Anything and everything about her he loved and would miss._

"_Until we meet again my angel…" It was what she was to him, and angel that brightened the dark and gloomy weather of Germany and a pillar that held him, the current Pillar of Seigaku, up when his cracks were being mended. Their relationship was a precious and close one to him, Probably deeper than even those with his teammates. It was only with her, that he let his guard down. It was only with her, that he felt complete. Only with his angel._

_With one last stroke of her silky jet-black hair, he boarded the plane set to return to Japan. Her jade-eyes watched sadly as the plane flew off into the setting sun, wings glinting from the dying orange-red rays. On the plane, his dark brown orbs were closed as he thought of the girl that he left behind, and of the promise of seeing each other again._

"…_I promise."_

**(end-flashback**)

"Tezuka? You've been staring into the sky for the past 5 minutes. Anything…wrong?"

"Hn…betsuni."

"Come now _buchou_, ever since you got back from that rehab center in Germany, you've been acting…out of it, and very melancholy," a sly soft voice spoke from his left.

Tezuka's eyes flashed in warning as he realized where the conversation was going.

"I wonder now…did you meet an exotic beautiful gir-?"

"FUJI. 50 laps NOW!"

"Hai hai, Tezuka-buchou." Fuji agreed, without any trace of worry. But before he ran, Tezuka saw the infamous sadistic smirk of Seigaku's tensai. "But don't worry, I -no, WE- will find out soon enough."

The only words to describe Tezuka's inward reaction are: "Oh" and "Crap". Now there was much more to worry about and to think about.

At least there were only a few minutes of practice left before he could get away and control his every-growing headache. Tezuka was apart from his teammates for so long that he even forgot how much they liked to stick their noses into other people's personal matters, even going as far as stalking. Usually when Inui called, he just hung up on him, never wanting to be part of the regulars' idea of "fun". And now that he was to be the focus…no, the _victim_, of their curiosity.

"I'd better bring a whole bottle of aspirin with me," he noted mentally.

Tezuka turned quickly as he felt like a dark ominous shadow rise up behind him.

"Probability of Fuji informing the others about his theory about he and a girl in Germany: **100**" Inui's monotone voice informed. "Probability of Eiji overreacting and shouting: **100**. Probability of-- Yes, Tezuka?"

"Inui, 20 laps."

Finally, only the sound of tapping feet was heard as the two regulars were completing their laps. Tezuka rubbed his temples in a circular fashion, and silently sighed, wary of the horrors and headaches to come as he finally got a few seconds of peace.

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**TBC.**

Thanks for reading and hopefully you liked it? Please review too, and no flames please. :D Hopefully I'll get a next chapter up and introduce my OC to you. Her name is . Exactly, I don't know what her first name should be, any suggestions would be appreciated.


	2. Ch 2: A Saturday Morning Meeting

**Disclaimer**:I do not own any Prince of Tennis characters.

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"So, Fuji-senpai, what was the 'extremely important matter to discuss' that you called us all to meet on a Saturday morning on one of our free early weekend mornings?" Momo asked curiously. 

Only the same smile and silence answered him.

"Fuji! I'm DYING here nya! Hey is it something to do with O-chibi? And maybe even Sakuno-chan? Hmm?" Eiji bounced around happily, excited at the prospect of a love relationship between the cocky freshman regular and the quiet coach's grand-daughter. "Oishi! We have to make sure that Ochibi here treats her well, buys her flowers, takes her out on dates, and…. Oh! And doesn't make her cry!"

"Echizen, I think you should behave very nicely to her so you won't hu- BURNINGGG! IF YOU MAKE HER CRY I'LL PUNISH YOU WITH…. Ahaa," Taka said, sheepishly scratching his head while Fuji discreetly snatched his tennis racket back from Taka's grasp. "Sorry everyone. I don't know what happened there."

"…mada mada dane, senpai-tachi," Ryoma huffed indignantly as Eiji and Momo blew their little theory out of proportion.

"Hoi hoi! O-chibi didn't deny it!" Eiji crowed with delight while entrapping him into his infamous bear hug.

"Eiji-senpai, I never said that I di-"

"Ii data, there is an 86.7 percent chance that Echizen likes sensei's grand-daughter, and a solid 95 that Momo-chan likes Tachibana's little sister."

Several gasps were heard as all eyes turned towards Momo.

"N-no! What are you talking about Inui-senpai?"

"Fshhhh, so the baka here says while blushing," hissed Kaidoh.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY MAMUSHI? DID YOU JUST CALL ME AN IDIOT?!"

"HELL YES I DID. WHAT, ARE YOU DEAF AS WELL?"

"SHUT THE HELL UP! WE ALL KNOW THAT I'M NOT THE IDIOT, YOU ARE!"

"OH REALLY BLOCKHEAD, WHY DON'T I JUST GIVE YOU A BLACK EYE!"

"CHE, YOU'LL JUST MEET MY FIS-"

"Oh yes, Fuji. What did you want to tell us about today," Oishi asked over the loud din of the two fighting. And as if those words were magic, the fighting stopped, for news from Fuji was always _very_ interesting. Well, it was more of Momo stopped as soon as he heard Oishi and Kaidoh stopped from the shock that Momo randomly shut his mouth in the middle of their infamous argument/fights.

"Hey, you almost made us all forget about Fuji's big news Momo-chan, with your whole "O-chibi and Sakuno-chan's secret current love relationship"," blamed Eiji.

"What? But Eiji-senpai, that was YOU that brought it up," protested Momo.

"Now now guys, I won't be able to tell you what I've learnt if we keep on switching the topic," Fuji calmly protested.

Finally, having captured the complete attention of the other Seigaku regulars present, he smiled his usual smile and began to inform the others about his theory.

"Have you all realized how Tezuka has been, out-of-it recently?" 7 heads bobbed up and down as each agreed and the sound of a pencil scribbling down everything greeted Fuji's half-closed eyes.

"And have you noticed that this has just happened right after Tezuka came back from his stay in Germany?" Again, 7 heads nodded their assent.

"Well, curiously, just the other day I was talking to Tezuka and interrupted him from his now-frequent day-dreams, if you will, and I have a feeling that I hit the nail on the head."

"Uh…waitasec Fuji-senpai. Hitting the nail on the what? I don't get it," Momo immediately asked.

"Momo-senpai, that's an English expression, 'to hit the nail on the head' basically means that someone described the exact problem or situation or whatever," piped up the slightly more cocky voice of our Super-Rookie, seeing as he did live in America for quite a while.

"Oh…I get it. Ha, wait. I mean, I KNEW THAT. HAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHA. HAHA. HA…ha. You guys don't believe me do you?"

"…"

"Not even YOU Echizen?"

"Mada mada dane Momo-senpai. I was the one that explained it to you," spoke Ryoma.

"Anyway, to continue what I was telling you guys about," broke in Fuji with a slight hint of annoyance, "I only _innocently_" (the 7 other regulars shuddered as they recalled Fuji's past "innocent" pranks and statements) "suggested that he met an exotic beautiful girl in Germany when Tezuka immediately, as in didn't even let me finish my sentence before he cut in, made me run laps."

"Which leads me to believe, that Tezuka has a girlfriend."

"……………" Only silence and shocked faces stared back at Fuji. Their jaws were all on the ground and Eiji, Seigaku's acrobatic player, had fallen in mid-jump due to the shock of Fuji's news.

Tezuka. Their buchou. Seigaku's Pillar of support. The stoic serious 9th grader that never ever participated in their favorite activity of snooping. The one that so many girls in their school pine after because of his cool aloofness, superb tennis skill, spotless reputation, and not to mention his amazingly good looks. The one that always rejected them with a stern, semi-reprimanding voice. The one that even Pro players have their eyes on. HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND?

Oh, this was big news. Wait, it was more than that; it was huge, it was shocking, it was just plain unnerving, and it definitely signified that:

"A guh-….a guh-…a girlfriend?! AHHH!!!! THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING! RUN EVERYBODY RUNNNN," shouted Eiji, with his arms flailing about wildly smacking the tennis regulars (minus Fuji), and knocking them out as Eiji suddenly lost consciousness from the news after hitting them all.

"Ah, what should I do now," Fuji wondered sadistically. "Maybe it's time again for more blackmail pictures of Seigaku's tennis regulars to place in his album. Heh, I do need more blackmail pictures." Chuckling softly, he whipped out his handy-dandy black marker and drew things on them and then took several pictures of the other tennis-players in their awkward and pitiful positions (a.k.a. a huge tangled pile of people) on the ground.

Of course, Fuji remembered to wipe out all traces of the black marker, so the regulars wouldn't know about any black-mail, until the unfortunate day when they decide to cross paths with the sadist.

_(10 minutes later)_

"Whoaa, what happened," they all groaned when they finally woke up, covered in bruises.

""Hey, where'd O-chibi go," Eiji asked, the first one to pop up because he fell on the cushiony pillows that were his teammates.

"Mmrphmrmrph mmrphmrmrph mrmm." (translation: "mada mada dane".)

"Ehh? Where'd that voice come from that sounded like O-chibi? C-c…could it be a GHOST? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH," yelled Eiji in horror, "Why'd you take our O-chibi? NO!!!"

"Eiji, Echizen is perfectly fine. See? He's standing right behind you," Oishi spoke in a motherly voice, trying to calm his doubles' partner down.

"YAY O-CHIBI NYA! You didn't die!" (Everyone sweat drops.)

Meanwhile, Fuji was standing in front of them, watching the exchange with his daily-worn smile with just a hint of a smirk.

"Oh, Fuji! How did you know about Tezuka's girlfriend," Taka asked, bringing everyone back to the original topic again for the third time in about 20 minutes.

"Yeah," agreed Oishi surprisingly enough, for he was the one who usually had the most reservations in poking his nose into another's private business. "So do you have a picture of her? I mean, I know it's Tezuka's privacy and all, but this is really exciting news! We absolutely, positively, need to know more about her! We're a team, and we're like family. So I think, that we should know what's going on with Tezuka, seeing as he's our buchou and all," he added.

"Well, no, I don't." Fuji's eyes widened slightly as the others slumped back down again. Even the usually indifferent Echizen was struggling to hide his disappointment. And it seems, Fuji wasn't the only one who noticed Echizen's abnormal interest, as the scratching sounds of a pencil against paper resumed.

"But, I do have a plan of getting a picture and maybe some background information of the two. I mean, we don't even know her name yet!"

"You do? Sugoi ne Fuji-senpai! You really are a genius," Momo shouted in glee, accompanied by Eiji's jubilant shouts and acrobatics.

"Hoi hoi! Was there any doubt that Fuji didn't have a plan," Eiji said whiling grinning like a Cheshire cat as cat ears randomly appeared on the top of his head.

"Huhuhuu. Ii data," snickered Inui. Oh this was bound to be interesting, and he even got to collect data from all of the members, and even possibly a hint of the working's of Seigaku's tensai's mind.

"So. Here's what we do…" and the 8 Seigaku regulars huddled together to hear Fuji's plans to find out about the unknown girlfriend.

As they broke from their huddle, the grins from the eight boys' faces were enough to say that they were extremely confident in their roles of the snooping.

_Beep beep beep beep bee-_. The alarm went off on Oishi's watch, reminding everyone that they had to go for a late morning practice. This was all well, because the plan was freshly engraved in their minds ensuring that they would succeed.

"Let's go guys, and carry out part A of our plan," announced Fuji, picking up his tennis bag and running off in the direction of Seigaku's tennis courts.

They all arrived at different times, in order not to arouse the suspicions of their already-wary buchou, and tried their best to act normally.

"Seigaku tennis club members," said a raised, slightly raspy voice. "Begin your respective warm-ups. Tezuka, meet me in my office as soon as you're done with your warm-ups."

"Hai, Ryuuzaki-sensei, I'll be up in approximately 15 minutes."

And so began the intricate, yet simple, plan of Seigaku's sadistic tensai.

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Okay, so I know I haven't really gotten anywhere with this yet. But I promise it's just the beginning so it's all building up. I really _really_ wanted my OC to show up in this chapter, but as you can see, it didn't happen. Well, that and the fact that I'm still having trouble with her name. I decided on her being half German and half Japanese just because I think half caucasian half asian people are so incredibly pretty. Also, I feel like I was rambling on a bit about nothing for quite a while. 

_Tell Me What You Think!_ Any questions, comments, or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Criticism too, but please no flames. Please review!

-**edit-**

Thanks to **fantasize.dream** for catching my grammatical errors. Also, I won't be updating the next chapter _until_ I have a solid in-depth plan for my story with all of my thoughts that are jumbled up in my head. But, hopefully it'll come along soon seeing as I have gym-class to write it (the only good thing about being injured. ).


	3. Ch 3: Mission Accomplished

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Prince of Tennis.

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_Pok! Pok! Pok!_ The rhythm of the tennis balls that bounced back and forth between the different sides of the courts was like a metronome as the all of Seigaku's tennis club members practiced their basic tennis skills: backhands and forehands cross-court and "down-the-line", serves, volleys, overheads, and lobs.

The warm-ups were running very smoothly this particular morning, almost like a well-oiled machine. Never before were the regulars this quiet when going through warm-ups. And right now in the middle of their 10 laps, now that Tezuka actually thought about it, practice was running _too smoothly, too quietly, too…peaceful_. They were up to something mischievous and he knew it. The little red flag that his chibi-fied self in the back of his mind held was being waved frantically as Tezuka became wary of the other regulars.

Thank goodness he had to meet Ryuuzaki-sensei up in her office soon so that he wouldn't have to endure their stalking-tendencies and nosy minds for the full practice-time. And Tezuka was pretty certain that Fuji had something to do with it.

"Alright listen up," Tezuka instructed as soon as the whole club was done with their warm-ups, "Non-regulars and freshmen, practice your forehand and backhand swings. Be sure to help your neighbors if you spot anything wrong with their swing. 200 each. Regulars, set up cones in the corners, we'll be practicing our speed and accuracy today. That is all."

With that, Tezuka spun around and walked down the path back to Seigaku's main building in order to meet with Ryuuzaki-sensei. However, he couldn't resist from shuddering slightly. The way his normally boisterous teammates were acting this morning seemed like the calm before the storm.

As soon as he disappeared down the path towards the school, the regulars all sprang into action.

"We have approximately 15.3 to 20.8 minutes before Tezuka returns to sort through his cell phone, download the possible information, and send files through this link here to Fuji's cell phone," Inui informed the others while holding up the link. "Everyone, get into positions. Eiji, you ready?"

"Hoi hoi," shouted the happy and hyper voice of Seigaku's acrobatic tennis player. "I'm on it!"

"Eh, Eiji. Are you sure you can do it," asked Taka worriedly. "I mean, our bags are placed in the clubroom, and you can see it from Ryuuzaki-sensei's office!" Instead of hearing the cat noises that usually came out of his teammates mouth, only silence greeted his ears.

Taka turned to his left, and instead of seeing Eiji there next to him, he only saw…an empty space.

"Taka-san," Fuji said calmly while pointing at the moving bush, "Eiji's already halfway there."

Suddenly as all the others realized his words, they sweat-dropped.

A moving _BUSH_?

They all watched the small bush scuttled from side to side along the road to the clubhouse, speechless at the idiocy of the idea. Even the pair of Ryoma and Momo, who were actually doing the accuracy training in order to maintain the illusion that all of the regulars were practicing, stopped momentarily to look. Kaidoh, their lookout, who had previously been scoping out Ryuuzaki-sensei's office window with a pair of binoculars, froze and stared in shock at the small bush.

"For goodness sake Fuji-senpai, using a moving bush as cover," accused Kaidoh incredulously. "He's even more noticeable now than before!"

"Kaidoh…that wasn't my idea."

"It wasn't?"

"Nope. I have a feeling that Eiji decided to add his own personal…touch to our mission," said Fuji while half-shrugging and laughing.

"Moving bushes? Ii data," muttered Inui while scribbling down more information of Eiji in his infamous notebook.

Suddenly, as quick as a nimble-footed cat, Eiji leaped from his cover and into the clubroom.

A few agonizing seconds passed, and then Eiji popped back out and into the bush, scuttling back the way he came.

"Look Oishi! Look! I got his cell phone," cheered Eiji as soon as he met up with the group.

"Haha, good job Eiji. Although…a moving bush?"

"Yeah! See? I have really cool red-hair. But you guys always say that it's too noticeable. So, if I hid in a bush and moved down the path then it would be harder to see me! Aren't I smart, nya?"

"Um…PFFT! HAHAHAHAHAHA," laughed the regulars.

"Hey let's not get distracted everyone," said Inui. However, no-one paid any attention to him as they were laughing at Eiji's supposedly "smart" idea.

A vein throbbed on his forehead as Inui increasingly got pissed at his teammates' small attention-spans.

"THE LAST PERSON WHO DOESN'T PAY ATTENTION TO ME, DRINKS MY SPECIAL INUI-JUICE AOZU!!"

And suddenly, all eyes were fixed on him as the owners of those eyes were shivering from the idea of tasting that revolting blue concoction.

"Hn. Good. Now Eiji, hand me his cell phone. Thanks. Fuji?"

"Here's mine."

"Alright, we're all set. And now to crack his security code. This shouldn't be too hard," mumbled Inui while tapping on the number pad of the cell phone.

_8-3-6-6-4-7_. _Beep_.

"Aha I knew it!

"Good job Inui/Inui-senpai," cheered the nosy group of tennis players.

"Eh, Inui-senpai."

"Yes, Momo?"

"I was just wondering how you knew Tezuka's security password to unlock his phone."

"Oh well that's easy. 836647 is TENNIS."

"A-are you serious," asked Eiji, staring at Tezuka's cell phone.

"Well obviously, tennis means a lot to Tezuka, so just switching between the numbers and letters, and the fact that the security passwords are 6-digits long, there was an 85 probability that it was his password. Simple, really."

Fuji was the first one to get over his momentary lack of speech.

"Aa, I see now. Let me go through his cell phone," he said while snatching it out of Inui's hands.

A few minutes passed by as Fuji picked some text messages, picture, and video files to copy and download to his own without showing any of the regulars the contents.

"Hey Fuji! Don't hog it all to yourself," said Momo while hopping around trying to see over Fuji's hunched and doubled-over back.

"Done and…" _beep_ "done!" Fuji triumphantly looked up with his usual smile still tacked into place. "Eiji, hurry back to the clubhouse with your bush and put it back where you found it or else we'll have to run laps for the rest of our lives!"

"Rest…of…my…life," Eiji suddenly shrunk back as the full act of invasion-of-privacy hit him right in his face. "AHH! Gotta go gotta go! I'm still so young to pay that punishment!"

He sped back towards the clubhouse, having forgotten all about the disguise of a bush, while hiding from big glass windows facing the tennis courts of the school.

As soon as Eiji returned, out of breath from his quick sprints, Fuji flipped through the pictures with an agonizing slow speed and finally showed all of them one that he had copied and downloaded from Tezuka's cell phone.

"And this," Fuji said as his normally smiling eyes lifted to show the deep-blue that he usually hid, "is Eckhart Hikari-san."

A couple of "Ooh"s and "Ah"s were heard as they cluttered around Fuji, looking at the said picture of the previously unknown and un-named girlfriend, Hikari, and their buchou, Tezuka.

"Hoi hoi! Tezuka's so lucky! Kari-chan's so cute nya! I want to hug her in a big big hug now!"

"…You already gave her a nickname Eiji-senpai," asked Ryoma.

"Well Ochibi. Someone as important as Kari-chan who is Tezuka's girlfriend needs a nickname! She positively needs one so therefore, Eckhart Hikari is now Kari-chan," Eiji loudly proclaimed as his cat-ears randomly popped onto his head again.

"But…you haven't even met-"

"Saa, I think Kari-chan is a good name, Echizen," agreed Fuji as his eyes re-closed back into happy curved lines. "I find no problem with it, do you _Ochibi_?"

But before the face-off of glares/stares between Seigaku's rookie and Seigaku's tensai could begin, Oishi unknowingly cut in while looking through the pictures and messages that were stored and locked on the cell phone.

"Oh, what's this," Oishi asked while wondering aloud. "This message is in both Japanese and German!"

"Whoa, really? Did Hikari-san write it," asked Taka while peeking over Oishi's shoulders.

"Yeah, she did."

"Saa. Really? Let me take a look at that picture of her again…" Fuji said while he opened his eyes again as he expertly analyzed and scanned the picture of her.

The regulars were inwardly shocked as they looked around at each other to confirm their observations. Seigaku's tensai opened his eyes for the second time in the matter of a couple of minutes! Usually it took a really serious tennis game for him to do that!

"Ah I see! Hikari Eckhart, is half-German and half-Japanese. You can tell from her name as well as from her physical features. Look here, she has the western nose, the double-eyelids, and green eyes. But her eyes are also slightly slanted like ours, she has high-pronounced cheekbones also commonly found here, and her hair is black and looks as silky as those that we normally find in here in Japan!"

"…Wow. Fuji, you really are a tensai! You can tell all of that by just looking at her photograph," said Momo in awe.

"Well, I am into photography…" Fuji trailed off as he noticed that all of the Regulars around him starting fidgeting as they were reminded of his blackmail photos; ones from the past, ones from this morning, and ones that were sure to come in the future. "But of course, you _all_ are well-aware of that aren't you," Fuji said while a sadistic glint came into his eyes.

They all shuddered again.

"Inui-senpai. How many minutes left until Tezuka probably will return," asked Echizen while pulling his white hat lower in order to hide the tinge of blush that lingered on his cheeks when he thought of some of his blackmail photos that Fuji had collected during the season.

Suddenly everyone blanched. They'd forgotten about getting back and practicing on the courts to keep up with the charade!

But no, they were too late. Their carelessness caused them to not notice Tezuka walking back out of the school.

"Regulars. Why are you all just standing around in a circle," spoke the stern voice of their buchou. "More importantly, why aren't you practicing?"

"Ah…um…Tezuka! You see…um," stuttered Momo.

"Yes?"

"We…um. Well, we uh…"

"I see. 50 laps," barked Tezuka. Oh he could feel a very bad migraine coming again.

"Nya? What? 50? But Tezu-"

"75!"

"Alright alright," sulked Eiji as he ran and joined the group as they started on their assigned number of laps.

"Fssh, thanks a lot senpai. Not that it matters to me…"

"Aw Kaidoh! You're so mean nya," cried Eiji as they all ran under the watchful eye of Tezuka.

However, when they started nearing Tezuka again as they went for their fifth lap, Fuji said in a low voice so that only they could hear,

"Mission accomplished."

And only Tezuka could wonder why the eight regulars, running their punishment laps, passed him with evident smirks on their faces. He had a suspicion that it had something to do with Fuji's cell phone. He had caught the movement of it being slipped back into the tensai's pocket out of the corner of his eye. Now the dreadful feeling filled his being again.

For the second time that week, the only two words that came to Tezuka's mind were "Oh" and "Crap".

* * *

**TBC**.

So what do you think? Good, bad, mediocre, so-so? Please review - comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated!


	4. Ch 4: 20 Messages

**A/N**: It's been over two years since I started writing this and I'm terribly sorry that I haven't updated in that long. I could say that school was very time-consuming, and it'd be true. And yet, it's not an excuse for just leaving this high and dry.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I can pick up where I left off. But I'll try and update as much as I can before college completely overtakes my life.

So...we'll see how this goes!

**Disclaimer**: Prince of Tennis does not belong to me.

* * *

The clock was slowly ticking. There were quiet clinks from the kitchen as the remnants of dinner were being cleared and cleaned. In the confines of his room, Tezuka laid out on his bed and stared at the ceiling with his eyebrows slightly furrowed at he tried to make sense of his current predicament.

A week ago, Tezuka had experienced the strangest practices of his entire middle school career in which he had assigned over 500 laps to his fellow varsity team members. In the privacy of his mind, even he admitted that 500 was (a little) excessive. It wasn't his fault, really! The members were up to their usual antics: Kaidoh and Momo were fighting like cats and dogs (Tezuka privately wondered how the teachers dealt with them), Inui was churning out his usual nauseous concoctions, Eiji was getting in touch with his inner 5-year-old while Oishi was getting in touch with his inner-Mom, Echizen "mada-mada-dane"ed everyone, Taka still freaked out the occasional unsuspecting freshman with his outbursts, and Fuji was...well...Fuji. But it wasn't just that. Tezuka had a sneaking suspicion that something was up. And, that something probably wasn't to his liking. Fuji and Inui frequently disappeared and reappeared during the practices. But, before Tezuka could realize and make a remark about it, Kaidoh and Momo would get into another fight or Eiji would glomp Echizen that the poor kid would pass out and he, as captain, would be required to bring him to the Nurse's office. And, by the time he remembered to confront the two members, they were hard-at-work practicing on the courts. It was so bad, that Tezuka began to doubt his sanity and even Ryuuzaki-sensei took him aside and quietly suggested a little time away from the team.

A break. Normally, the idea would never come across his mind, but at that moment, the coach's suggestion was practically like the invention of the combination of peanut butter and chocolate: heaven.

Caught up in his thoughts, he almost didn't notice his cell phone vibrating furiously in his pocket. Typing in his new password, (ever since he caught sight of Fuji slipping his cell phone back into his pocket, he suspected that the Regulars had gotten ahold of his own cell phone) Tezuka was shocked at the number of notifications that he received. 20! That was 19 more than he was used to! It was not that he was extremely anti-social. Tezuka just figured that the fewer people who knew his number was equal to a smaller chance of his number being leaked to his fan-club and thus it would be less likely that his study-time, practice-time and quiet-time would be interrupted.

Normally, Tezuka wouldn't reply to the excessive amounts of texting. However, seeing as they all came from one particular person, he didn't mind at all reading all of the texts. The corners of his lips twitched and his eyes softened as he read the onslaught of messages on his phone:

"Hey Kunimitsu-kun. Guess what? :)"

"Guess what guess what guess what guess what? :D"

"I'm so excited!"

"Err...did you fall asleep again while studying? ^_^; "

"Okay, I swear you're awake...bc it's only 11PM there and you sleep at like 3 AM (crazy person)"

"You're going to like my news, I promise!"

"...Hello?"

"lalala~ I'm going to rack up your phone bill if you don't reply to me"

"I miss you! Reply! hahaha"

"If you're not replying bc you think I'm in class, you're wrong bc I'm on holiday right now. So I'm not breaking any rules."

"I'm being completely honest here, Mitsu."

"Haha, did I shock you by leaving off the "kun"?"

"I wish you were here with me 3 ...so I could poke you until you respond!"

"...do you think I'm being annoying?"

"I'm sorry! T_T"

"Okay. I really need to tell you something!"

"I'm literally shaking. It's SUCH good news! XD"

"Fine, I won't talk to you either."

"Just kidding! I'm way too excited and I need to tell you now so I guess over the phone isn't really good...texting is even worse bc obviously I'm getting nowhere and you're not responding and I'll just leave you this really long message in hopes that you'll remember that you left your cell phone a) in a different room b)in your tennis bag c)under your pillow.

"_SERIOUSLY I'M GOING TO EXPLODE IF YOU DON'T GET ON NOW!skype? :D :D :D_"

The corners of his lips twitched and his eyes softened. Hikari was really something... And so, he rolled off of his bed and logged on. Then he texted back,

"Okay."


End file.
